International Day in Support of Victims of Torture- June 26

On June 26, 1987, the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Punishment or Treatment came into force, and since its 11th anniversary, on June 26, 1998, it has been commemorated as the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.

Part I - Article I of the Convention:
"For the purposes of this Convention, torture means any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity."


More at:
Calling for US Accountability on the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/2010/06/27/calling-for-us-accountability-on-the-international-day-in-support-of-victims-of-torture/

"Dodes'ka-den" - by Akira Kurosawa

Dodes'ka-den - by Akira Kurosawa is a feature film of legendary Japanese director Akira Kurosawa.

Dodes'ka-den has no protagonists or plotlines. It considers the lives of a community of people living atop a Tokyo trash heap and the dreams and beliefs that keep them alive. The characters include a mildly-retarded teen who behaves as being a trolley conductor in charge of a important activities, two wife-husband-swapping couples, the many children of a promiscuous woman and the man who adopeted them, a broken-down man in his eternal dream of building a house to a son, a withdrawn girl and her lecherous stepfather, an old tinkerer that keeps the community running.

Kurosawa said about the film: "you want to let a train called dreams run."

Orange Jumpsuit - Accused killer and sex predator Col. Russell Williams

On June 24, 2010, former base commander of CFB Trenton and accused killer and sex predator Col. Russell Williams appeared in court by video link and had his case adjourned for a month.

He was arrested in February 2010 and charged with first-degree murder in the deaths of two women: Jessica Lloyd and Cpl. Marie-France Comeau.

Williams is also charged in two home-invasion sex assaults . In those cases, he is accused of breaking into the victims' homes, tying them naked to chairs, blindfolding them, and sexually assaulting and photographing them. He also faces more than 50 charges for break-ins in Ottawa, Belleville and Tweed.

Read more:
Vancouver Sun - June 24, 2010
http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Accused+killer+Russell+Williams+makes+brief+court+appearance/3195579/story.html

The Globe and Mail - June 24, 2010
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/williams-case-adjourned-for-one-month/article1615776/

The Madness of deleting memories, changing brains... "Wouldn't it be good if we only had good memories ?" "I am going to change your brain! "

"NEURO MODULATORS" ARTICLE: "Top Pentagon Scientists Fear Brain Modified Foes" Wired - by Noah Shachtman - June 9, 2008 -

"But tiveness or modify troop behavior and/or emotional responses."

The article is about DARPA's (Pentagon's Mad Science Agency) research on drugs that "promote "brain plasticity" — rewiring the mind" and

ACTIVE DENIAL WEAPONS - Americans Using "PAIN RAY " in Afghanistan

Published on WIRED - DANGER ROOM - By Noah Shachtman - June 19, 2010
Article: http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2010/06/u-s-testing-pain-ray-in-afghanistan/#ixzz0rV6jqaln

Pentagon’s "pain ray," is a directed energy weapon that creates an intense burning sensation theoretically designed to repel a potential enemy. For now, only a vehicle mounted version has come to public knowledge.

The Active Denial System, or ADS, uses directed energy — millimeter waves — and heats up the top layer of the skin. Although the Pentagon says it is specifically designed not to cause any injuries, such as burns, there have been several incidents of blistering. One of the few known being an incident that took place in April 2008 when the Air Force revealed that an airman taking part in a test of ADS had been injured severely enough to be treated at a burn center.

Look at the video "Video: Pain Ray Fries Reporter"
* WIRED - Danger Room , By David Hambling, April 2, 2007

Can we imagine criminals or "out of control" Police Forces , getting a hold of these "very effective" Active Denial Weapons (a handheld version, of course)? I guess they could destroy even the Heath Care System of a country...THE VIDEO:



More
"Potential for Death" Report at http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/10/army-ordering-p/
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2007/04/video_pain_ray_/#ixzz0rV7h2a56
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/10/pain-ray-accide/#ixzz0rV4e576G
http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2008/10/pain-ray-accide/#ixzz0rV56s2Fx

"They are not people to him, just voices..." - The Conversation (1974) - Ford Coppola

Trailer for Francis Ford Coppola's The Conversation (1974), starring Gene Hackman. All copyrights acknowledged.

Paul Pritchard - The footage that made all the difference

Paul Pritchard recorded police stunning Dziekanski with Taser shots at Vancouver International Airport on October 14, 2007.

After Paul Pritchard gave police his footage of the Tasering of Dziekanski, he had to hire a lawyer, hold a news conference and threaten court action to get it back.

No wonder the RCMP wants "everything in secret"...

The video is only partially available now. It stops when RCMP officers start the actions that resulted in his death. It was previously on youtube. Part of the video follows:

"Sovereign Immunity" for American Criminals: "the Prince can do no wrong"

How a Dog Killed the Devil - " Mickey's Elephant (Oct 10, 1936)"

From El Salvador to Kandahar - Death Squads

Death Squads are armed military, police,insurgent, or terrorist squads that conducts extra-judicial killings, assassinations, and forced disappearances of persons as part of a terror campaign, war or insurgency. The killings are conducted in ways meant to ensure the secrecy of the killers' identities, so as to avoid accountability.

March 2010 - News on Óscar Romero - Archbishop of San Salvador - 30 Years after his Assassination on March 24, 1980.



Kandahar Death Squads - DOCUMENTARY BY Stephen Gray - May 2010

Join Physicians for Human Rights in Demanding an Investigation into Evidence of Illegal CIA Experimentation

TO JOIN THE COMPLAINT GO TO :

http://phrtorturepapers.org/?page_id=451



After the release of the report “Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program,” authored by Physicians for Human Rights (PHR) , providing evidence indicating that the “enhanced interrogation” program carried involved doctors and other health professionals in conducting apparently unethical research and human experimentation, a coalition has been formed by health, religious, human rights groups – PHR, PsySR, Amnesty, Center for Constitutional Rights, Human Rights Watch, Bill of Rights Defense Committee, Center for Victims of Torture, National Religious Campaign Against Torture [the International Rehabilitation Council for the Victims of Torture joined the next day] – and it was announced that a complaint is being filled with the Office of Human Research Protection (OHRP) in the Department of Health and Human Services.

This OHRP complaint provides a mechanism for individual citizens from around the world to directly sign onto the complaint.

CONSIDER GOING HERE AND SIGNING THE COMPLAINT.

The hope is that many thousands around the world will join in this complaint.

For more :

Physicians for Human Rights:
http://phrtorturepapers.org/?page_id=451

Office of Human Research Protections Complaint
http://phrtorturepapers.org/?page_id=451

Psyche, Science and Society
http://psychoanalystsopposewar.org/blog/2010/06/10/coalition-files-office-of-human-research-protections-complaint-investigate-cia-research/

Pentagon Manhunt for Australian-born Julian Assange , founder of the secretive website Wikileaks

UPDATE: February 20, 2014

Snowden Documents Reveal Covert Surveillance and Pressure Tactics Aimed at WikiLeaks and Its Supporters

By Glenn Greenwald and Ryan Gallagher 18 Feb 2014,

AT:
 
 https://firstlook.org/theintercept/article/2014/02/18/snowden-docs-reveal-covert-surveillance-and-pressure-tactics-aimed-at-wikileaks-and-its-supporters/

 

The Daily Beast - June 11, 2010

"Anxious that Wikileaks may be on the verge of publishing a batch of secret State Department cables, investigators are desperately searching for founder Julian Assange. Philip Shenon reports. Plus, Daniel Ellsberg tells The Daily Beast: "Assange is in Some Danger."

FULL TEXT AT The Daily Beast:

Pentagon Manhunt - June 11, 2010
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-10/wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-hunted-by-pentagon-over-massive-leak/

See also:
"Assange in some Danger " by Samuel P.Jacobs - Daily Beast - Jan 11, 2010
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-06-11/daniel-ellsberg-wikileaks-julian-assange-in-danger/

Daniel Ellsberg, the former US military analyst who released the Pentagon Papers said he fears for the safety of Julian Assange, founder of Wikileaks

See transcript:" Daniel Ellsberg Says He Fears US Might Assassinate Wikileaks Founder" at:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

"There is a crack in everything" - Anthem - Leonard Cohen- Toronto

Comments on the recently documented CIA Illegal Human Experiments - PHR Report

Listen interview with Dr. Stephen Soldz on CIA Research:

KPFK Radio , Los Angeles - June 10, 2010

Download and listen HERE

or go to:
http://archive.kpfk.org/parchive/mp3/kpfk_100607_140030eisha.MP3

Asylum St. Spankers - "If You Want Me To Love You"

American Bullets not in the "no fly list" - killing in Mexican soil

US Military and intelligence agencies engaged in illegal and unethical human experiments - PHR Report - June 2010

New York Times Editorial - June 8, 2010 - "Doctors who Aid Torture" - HERE endorses the recommendation of Physicians for Human Rights in their new report, "Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program" (PDF), for investigations by the executive branch and Congress of the charges of illegal human experimental research undertaken in support of Bush and Cheney’s torture program.

Physicians For Human Rights Report: http://phrtorturepapers.org/

Physicians for Human Rights Letter to President Obama to investigate thoroughly the full scope of the human experimentation: HERE (pdf)

http://phrtorturepapers.org/

More at:
National Religious Campaign Against Torture -
http://www.nrcat.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=451#report

Invictus:
http://valtinsblog.blogspot.com/2010/06/phr-report-bush-administration-engaged.html

The American Journal of Bioethics:
http://bioethics.net/journal/j_articles.php?aid=1140

FDL:
http://firedoglake.com/2010/06/06/phr-report-bush-administration-engaged-in-illegal-human-experimentation-on-torture/

"Faustian bargain" and impunity - "Elite Professionals" of The Torture Program

Experiments in Torture: Medical Group Accuses CIA of Carrying Out Illegal Human Experimentation

 

 

to read the report click here:

The Torture Papers

http://phrtorturepapers.org/

Besa: Muslims Who Saved Jews in World War II

The BESA Project


"For over 6 years I have been traveling to Muslim Albania and Kosovo documenting and doing portraits of Muslim families that saved Jews in WW2. Although Besa is a traditional Albanian code of honor many Muslim families have incorporated Besa in their religious beliefs and often were inspired by their faith in saving Jews from the Nazis. The rescue of Jews in Albania was a unique experience in Holocaust history as Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler were welcomed not as refugees but as guests."
Norman H. Gershman


BESA is a long held tradition of the Albanian people which is their code of honor. According to the code of Besa an Albanian will lay down their life for another in need of their assistance, friend or enemy.

The Eye Contact Foundation promotes religious, political, cultural and economic understanding and tolerance among people worldwide through the use of portrait photography.

http://www.eyecontactfoundation.org/node/16

Through its financial support of photographic projects, The Eye Contact Foundation seeks to bring together people of radically diverse backgrounds and beliefs in an effort to advance humanitarianism into the future.

Upcoming Exhibitions at:
http://www.eyecontactfoundation.org/Exhibitions/Upcoming

Evidence Indicates that Experiments and Research were conducted on Detainees to Design Torture Techniques and Create Legal Cover

PHR Press Release: U.S. Conducted Research and Experiments on Torture Detainees

The following is a press release from Physicians for Human Right - June 7, 2010
"Evidence Indicates that the Bush Administration Conducted Experiments and Research on Detainees to Design Torture Techniques and Create Legal Cover."

(Cambridge, MA) In the most comprehensive investigation to date of health professionals’ involvement in the CIA’s “enhanced” interrogation program (EIP), Physicians For Human Rights has uncovered evidence that indicates the Bush administration apparently conducted illegal and unethical human experimentation and research on detainees in CIA custody. The apparent experimentation and research appear to have been performed to provide legal cover for torture, as well as to help justify and shape future procedures and policies governing the use of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques. The PHR report, Experiments in Torture: Human Subject Research and Evidence of Experimentation in the ‘Enhanced’ Interrogation Program, is the first to provide evidence that CIA medical personnel engaged in the crime of illegal experimentation after 9/11, in addition to the previously disclosed crime of torture.

This evidence indicating apparent research and experimentation on detainees opens the door to potential additional legal liability for the CIA and Bush-era officials. There is no publicly available evidence that the Department of Justice’s Office of Legal Counsel determined that the alleged experimentation and research performed on detainees was lawful, as it did with the “enhanced” techniques themselves.

“The CIA appears to have broken all accepted legal and ethical standards put in place since the Second World War to protect prisoners from being the subjects of experimentation,” said Frank Donaghue, PHR’s Chief Executive Officer. “Not only are these alleged acts gross violations of human rights law, they are a grave affront to America’s core values.”

Physicians for Human Rights demands that President Obama direct the Attorney General to investigate these allegations, and if a crime is found to have been committed, prosecute those responsible. Additionally, Congress must immediately amend the War Crimes Act (WCA) to remove changes made to the WCA in 2006 by the Bush Administration that allow a more permissive definition of the crime of illegal experimentation on detainees in US custody. The more lenient 2006 language of the WCA was made retroactive to all acts committed by US personnel since 1997.

“In their attempt to justify the war crime of torture, the CIA appears to have committed another alleged war crime – illegal experimentation on prisoners,” said Nathaniel A. Raymond, Director of PHR’s Campaign Against Torture and lead report author. “Justice Department lawyers appear to never have assessed the lawfulness of the alleged research on detainees in CIA custody, despite how essential it appears to have been to their legal cover for torture.”

"The report was extensively peer reviewed by leading experts in related medical, legal, ethical and governmental fields addressed in the document."

FULL DOCUMENT AND PRESS RELEASE AT:

http://phrtorturepapers.org/?p=268

Children behind Israeli bars

Children behind Israeli bars: May 31, 2010 - "Al Jazeera Blogs"

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"There was a dog barking outside the room… The soldier told me he would bring it in to f**k me if I didn't confess… I was so scared… The guy then took out a stick; he whipped it forward and it got longer. He told his friends, who were looking on and laughing at me: "This boy doesn't want to talk. Let's pull down his pants so I can shove this stick up his a**."

"I tried to hold on to the chair; he kept poking me, groping my privates with the stick, trying to get me off the chair," N said while avoiding eye contact with me.

The Palestine Chapter of Defence for Children International (DCI) has collected 100 sworn affidavits this year of Palestinian children, under the age of 18, who said they were mistreated by their Israeli interrogators. Fourteen of them say they were either sexually abused or threatened with sexual assault, including rape, if they didn't confess to what their interrogators accused them of."

Full text at:

http://blogs.aljazeera.net/middle-east/2010/05/31/children-behind-israeli-bars

USA military/CIA covert missions in "allied countries" - from the use of consciousness-altering drugs to "extraordinary renditions"

abuse of human beings: Use of consciousness-altering drugs by the CIA and other secret services are back

 

A recent article "Cries From the Past: Torture's Ugly Echoes", was published on May 23, 2010 on "truthout". The authors H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Jeffrey Kaye, have documented, among other topics, the participation of the Air Force, Army and Navy in the use of drugs, "enhanced" interrogation methods and more, usually mentioned as CIA's methods. The authors also make a case that the exposure of the MKULTRA program was in fact a way of distracting attention from the much more pernicious, and operational Project Artichoke. They also document how a cover story invented by Cheney and Rumsfeld in 1975 that Project Artichoke was, in 1953, replaced by MK/ULTRA, was in fact a way of creating Disinformation to prevent the exposure of the atrocities of Project Artchoke. The article includes documented passages on the use of sedative supositories, Halucinogenic drugs, alleged "suicides" at US-operated compounds, disposal problems, CIA "rendition" activities and its connection with CIA illegal human experiments: The full article can be read at: http://www.truthout.org/cries-from-past-tortures-ugly-echoes59738 "Cries From the Past: Torture's Ugly Echoes", published May 23, 2010 by: H.P. Albarelli Jr. and Jeffrey Kaye, t r u t h o u t